Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Lori Chalupny got a very special honor on Sept. 9, getting her #5 high school jersey retired by Nerinx Hall HS. If you are a fan of Chalupny, you know that Nerinx Hall has a bit of an odd mascot...it's a Marker. What's a Marker you ask? Well, it's actually quite clever as the stands for "mark of excellence" as in the young women who graduate from NHHS go on to put their mark of excellence on the world. Chalupny also got a Woman of Excellence Award from the high school, spoke to students at an assembly and signed autographs. The jersey retirement was nice moment for Chalupny for many reasons, but one was that she missed quite a bit of school during her youth national team career, something that the teachers and administrators were...how shall we say...not pleased about. But hey, how could they have known they had an Olympic gold medalist in their midst? Long story short, this is one Marker who has definitely put her mark of excellence on the soccer world. By the way, Chalupny might be able to run for Mayor of St. Louis pretty soon. She was just allocated to the WPS club in St. Louis and on Sept. 8 did an autograph signing at a local Soccer Master store. The signing was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and apparently people started arriving at 5 p.m. The line would eventually stretch down the street and around the building. Lori didn't stop signing until nearly 10 p.m.! No wonder the fans in St. Louis love her!

About U.S. Soccer

As the governing body of soccer in all its forms in the United States, U.S. Soccer has helped chart the course for the sport in the USA for more than 90 years. In this time, the Federation’s mission statement has been very simple and very clear: to make soccer, in all its forms, a preeminent sport in the United States and to continue the development of soccer at all recreational and competitive levels.